It reminded him of Chemos, somewhat. Or, rather, what he'd heard of Chemos. He'd never seen the primarch's home world for himself, and had no real desire to do so. It sounded singularly unlovely. Alkenex preferred more colourful scenery.
He glanced down at the dead man. Something caught his eye, and he sank down. Caught inside the filthy robes was a tarnished medallion. It had turned black with age, but the outline of a clenched fist was still somewhat visible. He ran his thumb over it, wondering what it meant. He looked up, feeling the attentions of the crowd on him. Men and women, even a few children, watched him. They were murmuring something. A single word, over and over again, as if it were a prayer.
'Sabazius,' Alkenex murmured, sounding it out. Curious. The wounded overseer began screaming again. Alkenex looked down at him. 'Quiet,' he said. 'Or I'll give you something worse than a broken bone to scream about.'
'You have no authority here,' the man in the furs began hesitantly as he reached them. Before he could continue, Alkenex rose and stepped forward.
'Patrician Clabas, isn't it? I am Legionary Flavius Alkenex. You were expecting us.' Glabas' face was all sharp panes, worn flat by the cold. His eyes were hard, but brittle. You are to give us a tour of your family's holdings here, and these facilities.'
'I-I wasn't expecting-' Glabas spluttered. He was frightened. He had expected iterators. Mortals. Not demigods. He shrank back into his furs. His men tightened their grips on their weapons. Alkenex tensed. This could all go wrong, very quickly.
Quin stepped towards them. 'What you were or were not expecting is of no concern to us. Our authority derives from the hand of the Phoenician, and this world now belongs to him.'
It was said with such certainty that Alkenex almost believed it himself. He winced at his companion's lack of subtlety. Glabas winced as well, though not for the same reasons. Quin hadn't bothered to modulate his volume. The legionary flexed his hands. They'd brought only sidearms, reasoning that anything more might provoke a hostile - if short-lived - response. But it would be fairly easy for Quin to shuck Glabas' guards from their armour with just his bare hands. And from the look on his face, Glabas knew it.
The question was, would he do the sensible thing? Or would he grab hold of the excuse Quin had given him with both hands?
Clabas slumped. 'Very well,' the patrician said.
Quin gave a disgruntled sigh. Alkenex smiled, pleased.
'A sensible decision.'
Fulgrim set aside the reports, a frown on his face. He sat at a table in the gardens, as had become his habit. It was Pyke's fault, really, but the iterator was right - it was easier to concentrate out here, beneath a sky of glass, surrounded by carefully orchestrated greenery. He took a deep breath, enjoying the carefully layered odours of hundreds of different species of flower. For a moment, he indulged his senses, identifying and memorising the distinct scents for later study.
The moment passed all too quickly, and he soon turned his attentions back to the information his sons had gathered. Kasperos' account from the high-yield farms revealed little more than what Fulgrim had expected. Brutal working conditions, malnourishment, inadequate shelter. Crimes of negligence, rather than intent, but no less troublesome. It had been much the same on Chemos before his ascension. The workers were deprived of their humanity in order to increase compliance. But a compliance born of fear was doomed to sour into open revolt.
Already there were reports of anarchistic attacks on the infrastructure of the farms, as well as a more general agrarian revolt, such as Telmar and Thorn had encountered, along the outer rim of the wider agri-circle. Industrial farms had been occupied and fortified by desperate workers. The patricians reacted swiftly and brutally. The horizon was lit at night by the glow of burning fields.
It was worse in the ore-processing facilities, according to Alkenex's report. It was all but forced labour, and the high rate of accidents among the work crew and management both was concerning. Alkenex and Quin had seen little open violence, but the signs were clear.
'Sabazius,' he muttered, lifting the medallion Alkenex had found.
The assassins at the banquet had cried that name. Individuals among the lower classes prayed to it A folk tale, Pandion had called it. Bucepholos hadn't recognised it as anything other than a myth.
Chemos had its own slew of folk heroes, including Dig-Operator Jak, and Nimble Tolliver. But this didn't feel the same. There was a different sort of weight to the name. He studied the image on the medallion. It was a stylised hand, its fingers bent as if grasping for something. A swordsman's hand, or an archer's. It reminded him somewhat of his brother, Ferrus. He smiled. The fingers split at their tips, becoming something other - eagles, he realised. Not just eagles. He touched the aquila on his chest-plate, and then dropped the medallion onto the table, annoyed.
Fulgrim could smell war on the air. Byzas was breaking down, bit by bit. And there seemed no clear way of halting the slide without assuming total control.
Would he have to conquer the world to save it? Doing so might be more efficient in the long run, but it would prove his brothers right. An unacceptable outcome Fulgrim sat back with a sigh. Byzas was a poisoned chalice and he'd accepted it with a smile. 'Hubris, thy name is Fulgrim,' he murmured, considering the data manifests before him. He'd put Pyke's people to work transcribing the hard copies Corynth had provided, trusting them to note any and all discrepancies. There were always a few. Even transcribed onto data-slates, it was still a confusing sprawl of numbers. But there was a pattern there, somewhere. He could just make it out, like the strands of a spider's web, shining in the light.
But was it a naturally occurring pattern, or one designed? Was he fighting one enemy, or a hundred? Coincidence accounted for much of what he was seeing. Empires didn't die all at once. They collapsed in stages - outbreaks of violence accompanied by a breakdown in infrastructure compounded by treason. The same story, repeated ad nauseam across the scope of human history. But this was something else again - asymmetric warfare on a planetary scale. It was all happening more quickly than one might expect. As if some force were driving if all. A guiding hand, leading Byzas down the path of destruction.
'Sabazius,' he said again. The answer was there he thought.
A polite cough caused him to look up. He’d heard Corynth approach, but had paid little attention to the chancellor's arrival.
'I hope I'm not interrupting,' Corynth said.
'Hardly.' Fulgrim gestured to the bench opposite. 'Please, sit. I was just reviewing the data you so graciously provided.'
'I hope it will be of some use.' He gestured to the medallion. 'Something new?'
Fulgrim nodded. 'Do you recognise it?'
Corynth straightened. 'I believe it's the hand of Sabazius.' Fulgrim looked at him. Corynth had spoken in a tone he recognised. One that many used when they referred to the Emperor. 'And who is Sabazius?'
Corynth smiled and ran a finger across the medallion. 'Sabazius was a man. He led our ancestors here, or so the stories claim. He broke their shackles and freed them from a great tyrant, who claimed to be the master of all mankind. He slew a great serpent and fashioned ships from its scales, so that they might escape. From out of the darkness, through the forest of stars, he brought them to Byzas.' He sighed. 'Or so the stories say. Myths and half-truths.'
'Half a truth is better than none. Would it be of interest to you to know that this was discovered by my warriors at a scene of unrest?' He tapped the medallion.
Corynth was silent Then, 'I had heard rumours.'
Fulgrim looked at him. 'Share them, Belleros, by all means. You were helpful before, with Bucepholos.' He hadn't been, but Fulgrim saw no reason to tell him that.
Corynth seemed hesitant, as if he were breaking a confidence. Then, 'The Sabazian Brotherhood. A scholarly society, of sorts.'
'And this society is... What? Inciting revolution?'
'No. It's all but extinct, or should be.' Another hesitation. Longer this time. 'They were a progressiv
e society, seeking enlightenment.' A half-smile. 'They were seeking perfection. The perfect knowledge, the perfect form, the perfect society.' He mimed raising a sword. 'Their skills at swordplay were infamous amongst the duelling societies which proliferate even now amongst the patricians.'
Fulgrim listened, intrigued despite himself. There were similar societies on Chemos, and Terra as well. Corynth warmed to his subject. 'They sought to change society, one duel at a time. Not just with swords, but with debate. With literature and music and ideas, of fairness and equality. As Sabazius had, before the Tyrant of Old Night sought to silence him. As if they could rewrite the world with one perfect thrust.' He fell silent.
'You said they were extinct. What happened?'
'They made a mistake. They attracted the notice of those who held the power, and incurred their wrath. The Brotherhood was outlawed, and any found wearing their insignia or owning their writings was punished.'
'And yet, here it is.' Fulgrim gestured to the medallion.
'It was many years ago. Decades.' Corynth shrugged. 'The Gubernatorial Triumvirate were soon satisfied that the Sabazian Brotherhood had ceased to be a threat, and relaxed their strictures. Belief in Sabazius is considered a mildly gauche superstition now, rather than a sign of treachery.'
'That might change, before long.'
Corynth looked at him sharply. 'What do you intend, Fulgrim?'
'On Chemos, I was referred to by some as the Illuminator. So I shall cast my light far and wide, and see what is revealed. If there is a secret society at work here, I shall root it out, and eliminate the threat it poses, by whatever means necessary.'
Corynth frowned. 'You know, the ideals of the Brotherhood were compatible with those you insist this Imperium of yours espouses.
They want - wanted - the same things. Could you not work with them, rather than stamping on them?' There was a heat there, simmering around the edges of his words. As if the idealist in him were momentarily coming to the fore.
'If they still exist, you mean?'
Corynth blinked. 'Obviously.'
Fulgrim paused, as if considering. More for show than anything else. He smiled benignly. 'What do you want, Belleros? What do you wish for Byzas?'
Corynth looked at him. After a moment, he said, 'Something better.'
Fulgrim nodded. 'A familiar answer. But what is better? Define it for me. Better for you? Better for the Continental Government?'
'Better for Byzas.'
'The idealist's answer. Or a politician's. Which are you?'
'Can't I be both?' Corynth laughed. There was a harsh edge to the sound. A bitterness, mixed in with the sweet. Fulgrim could hear the echoes of a lifetime of disappointments in that laugh. 'Poetry, painting, wine... These are nothing. Politics is our true art. We practise it every day, in every way. We watch and calculate. We scheme over breakfast, plot at midday, and pay assassins after the evening meal. Every word, every deed, is scrutinised, dissected and twisted out of sorts, in order to further the goals of the listener.' He fell silent. 'It has always been that way. It is tradition.'
'And you wish to break with tradition?'
‘I wish to cast tradition into the fire.' Corynth slumped, as if suddenly exhausted. 'I wish to burn it all to ashes, and raise something beautiful in its place' He looked at Fulgrim, his expression sad. 'But that is not what you are planning, is it? There is no stability in that. No order. And it cannot be done according to schedule'
Fulgrim said nothing. Corynth laughed again, more softly this time 'You can't know what it's like, watching everything you know and love degrade before your eyes. Byzas has been dying for centuries. The end is close.' He pointed. 'You are the end. Compliance is the end of us. We will become something else, and Byzas - Byzas as it might have been - will be lost.' He smiled sadly. 'Perhaps that is for the best.'
Fulgrim shook his head. 'My world was a toxic cesspit before I took it in hand. Every day, it grew a little worse, a little less habitable. Its rulers squabbled amongst themselves for ever-dwindling profits and influence, ignoring what was going on outside their windows.' He leaned forward. 'The workers in the factories - including my parents - died in their thousands. They died from glowlung, from tainted water, from violence The machinery which had kept the factories running for centuries was breaking down, and in every generation there were fewer and fewer who knew how to maintain it.'
He stood abruptly. 'Wherever I looked, there was nothing but ruin. I did not see the sun until I was a man. I didn't realise that rain wasn't supposed to burn the skin, or that the average human lifespan was longer than thirty years.' He looked down at Corynth. 'I didn't know that there was something better, until it was almost too late.'
He turned and gestured to the closest tree 'I had never even seen a tree outside of the holdfasts of the executive clans. 'And those were pale, crooked things, with leaves like razors.' He looked back at Corynth. 'So yes, I know of what you speak. I know that feeling, Belleros. That sense of hopelessness. Of futility. But it can be conquered. I halted my world's descent into oblivion, and I will do the same for yours.'
'But will it still be ours when you are done, Fulgrim?' Corynth asked. 'Will Byzas still be Byzas? Or will it simply be Twenty-Eight One?' He frowned. 'I've taken up too much of your time Forgive me' He turned and strode away.
Fulgrim made no attempt to stop him.
It was only later that he noticed Corynth had taken the medallion with him.
Ten
the education of cyrius
Legionary Cyrius smiled.
The air of the palace gardens was redolent with the smell of fruiting blossoms. Artfully pruned trees clustered in carefully arranged glens. They crowded against miniature recreations of ancient temples, or lined the dark, cobbled pathways that cut through the palatial gardens. Marble statues peeked out from behind curtains of greenery, as if curious to see who might be invading their realm.
It was peaceful here, in contrast to the rest of Byzas. The world tottered on its foundations. Riots, panic, starvation. At night, the horizon was lit by distant fires. There was a war-wind blowing from the west, and the reports from the continental army were lacklustre at best. Cyrius gave no thought to any of that. All that mattered was the enemy before him, and the mission at hand.
Young noblemen, from the most influential families of the patricians, stood arrayed in a loose circle around him, hands on their weapons. They reminded him of predatory birds - eager to fly and hunt, but not much else Once, he might have been counted amongst their number. On Chemos, he had been the son of an Executive. One of the elite, chosen to serve by the Illuminator. Cyrius had been bom to rule. His blood was a contract between Chemos and its people, unbreakable. As the blood of these was a contract between their people and their world. Aristocracy was the same, whatever it called itself.
He towered over the tallest of them, but few of the group seemed cowed. Instead, their gazes were calculating. They were hungry for glory - another thing he recognised in himself. He wondered if Fulgrim had chosen Byzas because its culture was so similar to that of Chemos, in some aspects. He knew these people were being tested as much for compatibility with the culture of the Third as they were for compliance. These ones were too old to become his brothers, but their children, and their children's children, might yet serve beside him in the vanguard of the Great Crusade.
At last, one of them stepped forward. Cyrius was thankful. He'd been growing impatient. This one was thin, but with the look of a swordsman. His clothing was practically iridescent, and his fingers were decorated with rings. Tattooed glyphs, shaped like grasping hands, marked the corners of his eyes and his cheeks. The glyphs were common among the younger members of the elite, though Cyrius had yet to discern just what they signified.
'We have heard that you are considered a duellist of some note,' the young man said somewhat nervously, his fingers tapping against the pommel of his blade. 'Is this true?'
Cyrius laughed. 'Truth, like beauty, is in the eye
of the beholder.'
This witticism only resulted in a shared look of confusion. Cyrius sighed and drew his sword. It was a good blade, made for him by the finest artificers on Chemos. Forged from pure ores, drawn from deep veins and shaped according to the traditions of the Sulpha people. Light, but with a solid core that lent it weight and strength. He had carved the hilt himself, from the jawbone of a Chemosian shaft-cat, and wrapped it in gold wire. That too was according to tradition.
To make the perfect weapon required some involvement from its wielder. Some piece of them must go into it, else its soul would be stunted and immature. Or so the artisans had maintained. Cyrius couldn't say, either way. But he knew a good blade when he held it.
He set the sword point first into the ground and draped his hands over the cross-piece. 'Are you challenging me? If so, what makes you think you will have any more luck than the other fourteen fools who thought to do the same?'
A hurried consultation followed. He let his attentions wander, while they came to a decision. His skills, already potent, had been further honed by Tesserius Akurduana, a warrior reckoned the finest swordsman in the Legion. While Cyrius was not his tutor's equal, he fancied that he was the greatest swordsman on this planet, barring the Phoenician himself.
One finally stepped forward. And then another. A third. A fourth, a fifth, a sixth. Cyrius raised an eyebrow. 'Well, now. Is that the way this is going to be?'
'It seems only fair,' the one with the tattoos said.
Cyrius bowed low to his opponents. A calculated insult on Chemos. To ascribe more respect to an opponent than they'd earned was to as good as call them worthless. Evidently it was the same here, for several of the young men reddened and one reciprocated the bow, nearly touching his head to the floor. Cyrius grinned and tapped that one's ear with the flat of his blade. The young man jerked upright, eyes wide. The others tensed, wary now.
Cyrius spread his arms. 'Come on then, show me.'
Fulgrim- The Palatine Phoenix - Josh Reynolds Page 12